Source: News.webIndia123.com Two elephants were killed, another injured and a one-horned rhino died in separate incidents in Assam today, while two poachers were also killed by forest guards in yet another incident. Local reports said two elephants were killed and a third injured when they were hit by a train near Mariani railway station in Jorhat district in the wee hours today. One of the dead pachyderms fell on the railway tracks and the carcass could be removed after nearly two hours, disrupting train movement in the area. The incident occurred in the Gibbon wildlife sanctuary area and the elephants were hit as the train was crossing the sanctuary. A third elephant was also injured in the incident but it moved into the forest before aid could be provided. Locals alleged that trains do not adhere to the 20 km/hour speed limit in the sanctuary area, leading to routine death of animals in similar accidents. In another incident, an adult rhino died after being stuck in a mud-pool inside Kaziranga National Park (KNP). The rhino, which died in the early hours today, was stuck in the pit for nearly 20 hours. Forest teams had tried to pull it out, but failed. Forest personnel maintained that the rhino was old and ailing and met a natural death. The failure of the forest department to rescue the rhino led irate locals to block NH 37 passing through KNP for sometime today. The blockade was later lifted on assurance by the Golaghat district administration of looking into the matter. In yet another incident, two poachers were killed in an encounter with forest guards in Bagori range of KNP today. A rifle and several bullets were recovered from them. However, at least two other poachers of the same gang managed to escape during the encounter.

Leave a Reply.

ADMIN. NOTES﻿Due to numerous requests, note that comments for this area are now OPEN.﻿ This page is only for 2014-2015 news. For all prior (2009-2013) posts, see the Animal Poaching News page. Unlike the Animal Poaching News page, this one is not fully indexed (except for "cattle rustling" and only a handful of other categories; see below). Why not? See the Read Me First page.